MASS SHOOTINGMass Killings Hit a 20-year Low, Northeastern Data Shows — but Public Perception Hasn’t Caught Up
As 2025 winds to a close, new data show a surprising trend: this year is on track to record the fewest mass killings in two decades.
As 2025 winds to a close, new data show a surprising trend: this year is on track to record the fewest mass killings in two decades. That is according to data collected by James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminologist and leading expert on mass murder.
Fox manages the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killing Database. He has had his finger on the pulse of mass murder and violence in America for decades, insisting more recently that there is something of a discrepancy between the prevalence and scale of “mass shootings” as a subset of “mass killings,” and the public’s perception of the problem. That is largely a product of wall-to-wall media coverage of what he said are in fact rare events — that is, mass shootings involving the deaths of four or more people.
Mass shootings, Fox noted, make up about 1% of all gun deaths in the United States. In a typical year, they claim between 100 and 200 lives, compared with roughly 17,000 lost to gun homicides.
But mass killings fell by roughly 24% this year compared to 2024, which follows about a 20% decline from 2023 to 2024. This year’s tally is down a whopping 59% from 2019, when a record 41 mass killings occurred, which Fox noted was an anomalous year.
Northeastern Global News spoke to Fox about the findings, and what they mean moving into 2026.
You’ve been tracking mass shootings and mass killings for decades. For starters, what stands out to you about recent trends, and how they’ve been handled by the mainstream media?
I have frequently pointed out that when mass shootings and mass killings increase, there’s lots of coverage in the news about it. But the downturn we’ve seen — almost half, a big downturn over the last two years — there’s been almost nothing. I did write two columns: one for the Globe last January in the Ideas section, and one in May in the Washington Post. But it’s not something that really has been out there — that there’s this big decline, until just this week. So I’m glad it’s out there, but I think there’s more to say about it.
What do you think is driving that downturn?
The downturn is largely just a return to a more normal or usual level that we saw prior to the spikes in the past few years. What goes up must come down. A lot of it
